Page 106 of The Boyfriend Algorithm
“You love it.”
“I love it so much.”
The apartment is fully committed to the theme. There are drink station labels—“The Short Circuit,” “The System Reboot,” “Batteries Not Included” (which is just vodka soda, but the name makes my mother blush every time she reads it). The napkins have little robots on them. There’s a poster on the wall that says “ERROR 404: SINGLE LIFE NOT FOUND” and another one by the bathroom that says “PLEASE REBOOT BEFORE RETURNING TO PARTY.”
And in the center of the living room, on an easel, is a giant poster board titled “BUILD YOUR PERFECT BOYFRIEND” with a checklist of attributes and a stack of heart-shaped stickers for voting.
The attributes listed:
☐ Remembers your coffee order
☐ Fixes things around the house
☐ Kills spiders
☐ Worships the ground you walk on
☐ Cannot physically lie to you
☐ Has researched female pleasure (147 sources)
☐ Knows your sleep schedule
☐ Makes you breakfast without being asked
☐ Will fight your ex (emotionally)
☐ Comes with a dog
Every single box has a sticker on it.
“You realize this is all Aiden,” I say.
“That’s the joke, Ruby. The joke is that you’re marrying the literal perfect man and the rest of us are on dating apps swiping past guys named Kyle who list ‘gym’ as a personality trait.”
Gemma is in the corner examining the circuit board streamers with genuine interest. “These are anatomically inaccurate,” she says, tracing one with her finger. “The resistor placement is wrong.”
“They’re streamers, Gemma.”
Avery is on the couch, legs curled under her, wine in hand, watching everything with her usual steady calm. She’s wearing a T-shirt that says I’M WITH THE ROBOT with an arrow pointing to the right, which currently points at nobody, which she says is “a metaphor for my love life.”
And my mother. My mother is here. Wearing a sash Liv made her that says MOTHER OF THE BRIDE (AND GRANDMOTHER-IN-WAITING), and she’s on her second “Short Circuit” and her cheeks are flushed and she keeps reading the Build-A-Boyfriend checklist and nodding approvingly.
“‘Has researched female pleasure,’” Mom reads out loud. “One hundred and forty-seven sources.” She looks at me over her cocktail. “That’s a big number, Ruby.”
“Mom, please.”
“Your father, rest his soul, read one article. One. And it was the wrong one.”
“I am begging you to stop.”
“I’m just saying, sweetheart. You’re a lucky woman.”
Liv raises her glass. “To Ruby! Who found love in a hopeless place. And by hopeless place, I mean her utility room.”
Everyone drinks. I drink. The cocktail is strong and sweet and I’m surrounded by my favorite people in the world and I’m getting married in three weeks and sometimes—just sometimes—the reality of that hits me sideways and I have to catch my breath.
I’m getting married. To Aiden. To a synthetic man with no belly button and a hum where his heartbeat should be and a control panel in his ribs, who has a love for me that I spent months being terrified of and now couldn’t live without.
